Youth of India Foundation - New Delhi

We started our journey with a NO, which we positively took it as a New Opportunity. In 2015, during the massive earthquake in Nepal; young people in Siliguri wanted to extend our support for our neighbors. Rejected initially, we initiated The Pocket Money Campaign, inviting students and young people to donate from their pocket money. The entire city then poured in for the support, where the young people contributed Rs.1,50,000 from their pockets with some letters stating, “Dear Sir/ Madam, I fought with my mommy to buy toffee for 2 Rs. and here I am contributing for a better Nepal.” This campaign was then recognized as one of the Top World’s Best Campaign by UN MGCY and was screened at a side event during General Assembly. Thereby, Youth of Siliguri was initiated.

We have realized the importance of sensitizing individuals in bringing sustainable change, thereby we distributed 100,001 households and requested each one of them to plant an additional tree. There were about 8000 of them who planted an additional tree, each one of them taking care for each one of them. Nonetheless, our teams then pollinated in various parts of the country leading to creating various local chapters in India.

Youth of India now envisions towards 2047, when India would celebrate its 100th Independence what would be the role of youth in nation building, Engaging, Empowering and Evolving Youth of India.

Every Indian is a part of Youth of India, its only that we haven’t reached to them yet, any young person who comes up with an idea, he/she leads it and we become the support. Likewise, the leader becomes a volunteer in the other projects.

Further, our campaigns like UnPlastic India have gathered more than 10,000 students in pledging to eliminate the usage of single-use plastic, we called for Global UnPlastic Day during United Nations General Assembly and again during the preparatory meeting of 2020 United Nations conference along with the representatives of all the members states mission to UN.

Our talk show called Youth Ki Baat has given platforms to more than 25 youth activists at the marginalized areas for sharing their sustainable stories and our awareness drive of Darjeeling Votes had gathered a ground awareness for coming and vote to more than 5000 households and more than 1.5 million online. While observing the role of Gandhi in localizing and rejuvenating Sustainable Development, during the occasion of Celebrating 150 years of Mahatma, our campaign Gandhi Talks had been organized in 200 colleges and schools across the country thereby engaging more than 30,000 students in understanding the Gandhi’s vision for Youth of India and his contribution and models of sustainable development.

Our Discussions around opportunities and challenges for North Bengal and Role of Youth in localizing Sustainable Development had brought a corss-cutting solution and outcome of integrating SDGs at all levels bringing forth the importance of SDGs at the policy level, implementation and further tracking the implementation of SDGs.

As Youth of India, works bi-partisan and with marginalized young women and men in advancing SDGs from local to global level, we are working on sustainable solutions of making Great out of Waste. As of now, our plantable conference pads, folders made out of recycled papers, pens made out of recycled papers having seeds of various plants and vegetables have been

Our message of using sustainable and local solutions in being UnPlastic like Kulhads had been recognized by Prime Ministers and Presidents of various countries, including H.E. United Nations Secretary General who had gracefully kept one of our Kulhads in the dice at a high-level meeting with the Environment Ministers of Member States during UN General Assembly.

Currently, Youth of India is present in 15 states and 8 countries, with a volunteer base of more than 1,00,000 youth across the country. We are going to launch a coalition of 100 universities, – India and abroad – in Calling for Global UnPlastic Day and further participate in United Nations dialogue on SDG 14 in Portugal as a CSO, with special accreditation to 2020 United Nations Conference.